THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR: A NOVEL - Rare Fine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed And Dated (On The Day of Publication) by Arthur Phillips

Phillips, Arthur (Author) & Shakespeare, William (Attribution/As Re-Written By Arthur Phillips)

ISBN 10: 1400066476 / ISBN 13: 9781400066476

Published by New York City, NY: Random House, 2011, 2011

About this Item

1st Printing. Signed. 370 pages. Published in 2011. The author's fifth novel. Now considered a contemporary classic. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Arthur Phillips' "The Tragedy of Arthur". Bids to be The Last Word on post-modernism by being ironic about Shakespearean irony. "A long-lost Shakespeare play surfaces in Phillips' wily novel, a sublime faux memoir framed as the long Introduction to the play's first printing, a Modern Library Edition, of course. Arthur Phillips and his twin sister, Dana, maintained an uncommon relationship with their gregarious father, a forger whose passion for The Bard and for creating magic in the everyday leave lasting impressions on them both: Dana becomes a stage actress and amateur Shakespeare expert, Arthur a writer who 'never much liked Shakespeare'. Their father spends most of their lives in prison, but when he's about to be released as a frail old man, he enlists Arthur in securing the publication of 'The Tragedy of Arthur' from an original quarto he claims to have purloined from a British estate. As the authentication process wears on - successfully - Arthur becomes convinced the play is his father's greatest scam. Then there's the play itself, which reads not unlike something written by the man from Stratford-upon-Avon" (Publishers Weekly). After all, doubts, unfounded, persist nevertheless as to who William Shakespeare really was, or if he even existed. Arthur Phillips' play written in the manner of Shakespeare is dazzling, a copy worthy of the original. Hence the novel's eponymous title. An absolute "must-have" title for Arthur Phillips collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed and dated (on the day of publication) in black ink-pen on the title page by the author: "Arthur Phillips 4/19/11". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed and publication-day dated copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the Art Seidenbaum Award for Best First Novel in 2002 for "Prague". One of the most brilliant American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ARTHUR PHILLIPS TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 1400066476.

Seller Inventory # 16525

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR: A NOVEL - Rare Fine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed And Dated (On The Day of Publication) by Arthur Phillips
• Publisher: New York City, NY: Random House, 2011
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1400066476
• ISBN 13: 9781400066476
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author

About this title

Synopsis

The Tragedy of Arthur is an emotional and elaborately constructed tour de force from bestselling and critically acclaimed novelist Arthur Phillips, “one of the best writers in America” (The Washington Post).

Its doomed hero is Arthur Phillips, a young man struggling with a larger-than-life father, a con artist who works wonders of deception but is a most unreliable parent. Arthur is raised in an enchanted world of smoke and mirrors where the only unshifting truth is his father’s and his beloved twin sister’s deep and abiding love for the works of William Shakespeare—a love so pervasive that Arthur becomes a writer in a misguided bid for their approval and affection.

Years later, Arthur’s father, imprisoned for decades and nearing the end of his life, shares with Arthur a treasure he’s kept secret for half a century: a previously unknown play by Shakespeare, titled The Tragedy of Arthur. But Arthur and his sister also inherit their father’s mission: to see the play published and acknowledged as the Bard’s last great gift to humanity. . . .

Unless it’s their father’s last great con.

By turns hilarious and haunting, this virtuosic novel—which includes Shakespeare’s (?) lost King Arthur play in its five-act entirety—captures the very essence of romantic and familial love and betrayal. The Tragedy of Arthur explores the tension between storytelling and truth-telling, the thirst for originality in all our lives, and the act of literary mythmaking, both now and four centuries ago, as the two Arthurs—Arthur the novelist and Arthur the ancient king—play out their individual but strangely intertwined fates.

A New York Times Notable Book • A New Yorker Reviewers’ Favorite of the Year • A Wall Street Journal Best Novel of the Year • A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year • A Chicago Tribune Favorite Book of the Year • A Library Journal Top Ten Book of the Year • A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year • One of Salon’s five best novels of the year

About the Author

Arthur Phillips is the internationally bestselling author of The Song Is You, which was a New York Times Notable Book and named one of the best novels of the year by The Washington Post; Angelica; The Egyptologist; and Prague, which was also a New York Times Notable Book and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons.